


Make It Real

by PrincessAutumnArcher



Category: The Night Manager (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemy Lovers, Ex-Spouses to Lovers, F/M, Heavy Angst, Kiss or Kill, Mild Smut, Reader-Insert, Reunion, Sort Of, Takes Place During Episode 6, Unresolved Emotional Tension, no y/n
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-11 16:05:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19113082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessAutumnArcher/pseuds/PrincessAutumnArcher
Summary: "It has to look real.""Then we'll make it real."You had known him before Cairo, long before Jonathan Pine became Thomas Quince and Andrew Birch and laid down his life in the name of repenting his country from the sins of another. You had loved him before he left for Iraq, and during, and after, when he returned and left, taking a piece of your heart with him.Perhaps you should have known that you had lied to yourself about having stopped loving himbeforeit suddenly mattered again, and in such a momentous way. But you hadn't, and with everything on the line, there's no time to question what is truth and what is fiction. You can only hope that after the performance of your life, the truth can emerge for the curtain call.Roper mentions early on that Jonathan was married for six months, and his ex-wife is never mentioned again in the show. And thus, this fic was born.Also known as "The One Where the Author Saw an Opportunity for a Reader Insert Without Breaking the Canon or Timeline of the Show, and Went For It" #noregrets





	1. Enter Stage Left

**Author's Note:**

> Playlist, curated for your reading pleasure: Make It Real (playlist)
> 
> Pretty formatted link doesn't seem to be working, so here's a copy and paste version as well: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNXIuqYj2yveE7S1g1AquaNmRf_LbfBZJ

From the moment he strode into the casino, you knew you were in for trouble.

Jonathan Pine was a tremendous actor; he wore effortless confidence and charisma just as well as the fine suits Roper’s blood money had bought him. They both looked damned good on his lean frame, and you hated yourself a little for how magnetized your gaze was as Pine leaned against the bar to order, his long legs sheathed in navy wool.

“Jesus, Ange,” you muttered to yourself, peering over the edge of your gin and tonic at Roper’s entourage as they made their way to the roulette table. “The things you’ve got me doing for your boy…I don’t know whether I should kiss you or kill you.”

Roper’s leggy blonde laid out her roulette chips, fingers deliberate as she bit her lip, and you very nearly allowed yourself an eye roll at the clumsy placement of her supposedly coded message before the weight of Sandy Langbourne’s semi-suspicious gaze reminded you that you couldn’t afford such luxuries. You’d had your time in the sun, those six months of Jonathan, you reminded yourself. It wasn’t his fault that you made a better spy than a wife—and apparently, good spies weren’t his type.

You were lucky that Pine had been so successful in ousting Corkoran, you reasoned, because if the ever-vigilant factotum of a man had been around, there was no way in hell he would have missed the past two minutes you’d spent glowering at Jonathan and the little looks he kept sending Jed’s way. Those looks were soothing, even if the comfort they carried was hidden behind politely masked eyes and soft smiles that didn’t quite dare reach his eyes.

He’d given them to you, once upon a time.

You blinked past your jealousy and took a sip of your drink, the alcohol burning through your throat and leaving some semblance of clarity in its wake; emotional residue aside, Jonathan needed to be more careful, or those little looks were going to get him killed. Roper seemed occupied for the moment with the Egyptian man laughing between him and Langbourne, but any second now, those flat blue eyes were going to turn to the pretty pixie-cut at his side and notice how her eyes had barely left the tall man at the other end of the table since they’d arrived, how she’d been inching away from her master and towards the man whose very existence was the promise of a life better than anything she could possibly imagine.

The vitriol in your thoughts shocked you and you glanced away quickly, smiling vapidly at a man whose greeting included a hand trailing just a tad too long over your own. You entertained him for a few moments as you collected yourself and quelled the storm of unexpected, unwanted emotion stirring in your stomach before excusing yourself for another drink.

Fresh whiskey in hand, you made your way through the glittering lights and thick, alcohol-scented air to Roper’s roulette table, settling in beside Langbourne and laughing just enough as you pressed your arm against him that he took note of the charming smiles you flashed towards the far end of the table from vermilion-painted lips.

 _Jonathan_ , you prayed internally through gritted teeth while you giggled and pretended to sip generously from your glass, _please have charmed this one as thoroughly as the rest_.

Thankfully, Langbourne played right into your hands: an arm snaked around your waist, fingers squeezing your hip suggestively, as you bent over the table to place a chip down delicately, fingers pressing the round plastic into the table as you looked up through your eyelashes at the man you were now referring to in your head as Mr. Andrew Birch.

Langbourne pulled you down to sit beside him and you let yourself fall, tittering until you felt the plush velvet upholstery under your thighs, the uncomfortable heat of Langbourne’s leg pressing against you while his hand splayed low over your stomach, fingers just brushing the crease where your leg began.

You felt a sudden jolt of pity for Caroline Langbourne, and a rising wave of self-disgust as your lips curled into a vulpine smile, eyes sliding up to meet Sandy Langbourne’s leering regard.

“Seems like you’ve got your eye on something over there,” he said, voice blurred slightly by the alcohol on his breath as he nodded in Jonathan— _Andrew_ , you corrected yourself sternly, _no room for rookie mistakes—_ in Andrew’s general direction. You followed his motion, groaning mentally as you saw Andrew’s head begin to turn in Jed’s direction again, and resigned yourself to leaning in to whisper in Langbourne’s red-tipped ear,

“Every girl likes window-shopping. But I like to try things on before I buy them.”

He laughed, the sound grating on your ears, but his face turned to yours, your flush-stained cheeks (Nars Orgasm, applied earlier that evening with a fluffy brush and a healthy swirl of both self-satisfaction and dread) glowing under the chandeliers and blocking his view of Andrew and Jed.

“Sure you wouldn’t rather meet me in the Arsinoe suite? I can promise the merchandise won’t disappoint.”

Your pity for Caroline Langbourne swelled but didn’t stop you from taking her husband’s wandering hand and saying coyly, “I don’t mind testing a new product. Introduce me?”

His eyes hardened, but your next line was already spilling from your lips, a perfectly dosed countermeasure wrapped up in a whispered confession. “And I’m not very competitive, I’m afraid.” Your eyes slanted towards the girl in red on Langbourne’s other side, who was looking none too happy about her abandonment in the wake of your sudden arrival. A lazy, disgustingly self-assured smile spread over Langbourne’s wide mouth and he stood, offering you a hand.

You took it, sure to blink up at the man with wide eyes before letting him pull you to your feet; men like these thrived on feeling control and power, and you’d much rather take being alive long enough to feel sick at your subjugation over being dead soon enough to forget how a fleeting moment of liberated victory felt. Langbourne’s smirk glinted through a haze of cigar smoke as he led you over to the tall man in a navy suit across the roulette table.

“Andrew,” Langbourne said just a bit too loudly, clapping the man on the shoulder, “there’s someone absolutely dying to meet you.”

You bit back a bark of laughter. That would be a line to laugh about over a round of drinks with Angela and Rob, once you were back in London and this was all over. Now, your only option was to fix a sultry smile to your face and play the part Pine needed of you.

He turned, a bright smile already blooming over his lips as he extended a hand, eyes roving over your body the same way Langbourne’s had minutes earlier. You wanted to punch him straight in the middle of that perfect face, but a malicious little voice in the back of your mind whispered that you could very easily achieve the same satisfaction by biting down on his lip if you lunged up and kissed him. Another, even tinier voice in the corner of your skull reminded you sternly that you had a job to do, and even more quietly insisted that he had glossed over your face to avoid blowing his own cover by risking signs of recognition. Your own eyes lingered on his lips and you found it in yourself to imagine devouring them just one more time.

Instead, you took the proffered hand and hated yourself for the tiny thrill that ran like lightning up your spine when his long fingers closed around your wrist.

“Andrew Birch,” he introduced himself, clear blue eyes pinning you down.

“Sameera.” Your mouth moved despite the fog in your brain, replying with the name you had assumed for this mission and repeating its full iteration—not Sameera Alekan, of course, but then again, your fake surname didn’t really matter. He knew why you had to be here.

Langbourne’s presence faded away, and from the corner of your eye you saw his crisp white shirt slide next to the girl in the red dress across the table. You could feel Jed’s stare like a red-hot dagger in your back, and despite your years in the field, despite _everything_ , you wanted nothing more than to whirl around and scream at her, _Fool! I’m sticking my neck out to save yours!_

“What’s a beautiful woman like you doing in a place like this, Sameera?”

His voice was smooth and charming, the crisp, spicy scent of his cologne floated up to your head, and you wished that you hadn’t left your nearly full drink on the side table by Langbourne. You smiled up at him, leaning closer to brush his arm as you prayed that Jed was wise enough to entertain Roper’s rattlesnake eyes. For her sake as well as your own—and his.

“Studying ancient Egypt. I’m doing research with Queens’ College on a fascinating new archeological find that suggests the existence of alliances on the Nile that we’ve never suspected.”

He had allowed you to slide steadily closer to him, and now your head swam with his cologne and the forbidden familiarity of his warmth just a hairsbreadth away from your skin. His eyes were half-lidded as he bent to breathe, “Very intriguing. Why don’t you tell me about this new _theory_ in detail in my suite? It’s much quieter.”

Your eyes drifted closed and you could feel your lower lip quiver as you nodded, despite all your efforts to keep your composure. He was acting, you were acting. Just a performance. That was all. A soft “hm” of acknowledgement brushed past your ears as he sidled past you, one hand sliding across your waist and back as he moved towards Roper.

You’d divorced because he couldn’t live with a woman he felt he couldn’t trust, and you had understood; you lied for a living and he had left the army because he didn’t want to. Yet here you were, finding him suddenly playing the very part he had scorned you for. A mixture of sorrow and loathing bubbled in your throat as you turned to watch from your peripheral vision, filling in the dialogue you couldn’t catch over the noise:

_Mind if I have a bit of fun tonight, Chief?_

Andrew’s eyes sparkled mischievously as he made his request, gesturing with the slightest of nods towards you. Jed’s eyes stayed firmly on the roulette wheel, but her gaze remained stationary as the courier set it into motion. At least she had enough sense not to tighten her fingers around Roper’s arm. Roper grinned and looked out over the table, eyes falling on your figure as you tapped your fingers on the edge of the wood trim before running them through your hair, trailing a few lazy fingers down your throat and across your collarbone. Young and beautiful was all you had to be. Available for purchase, and that was all.

_And here I thought you a man without vice, Andrew._

You heard Jonathan’s laugh in response—not Andrew’s, _Jonathan’s_ , the very same rich, unfettered release of amusement that had rolled from your husband’s throat while you fell in love with him. It hurt deep, in a way that you thought you had forgotten how to feel years ago. You set your teeth more firmly in their seductive smile to stave off the sudden, bleeding ache in your chest and forced yourself to listen to the rest of Roper’s reply.

_Go on, enjoy yourself. Just don’t beat Corky’s bill, or I’m afraid I’ll have to cut you off._

Andrew chuckled, a strange, alluring sound, and your blood ran cold despite knowing full well how this night had to end. “I’ll be sure to clean her up by tomorrow morning. No need for room service.”

Roper looked at him askance for a moment and you felt your heart stop for a single razor-sharp second before the old man smiled coldly and remarked, “From no vice to a basket overflowing. In just one night, Andrew! Do enjoy yourself, old boy.”

You wished you could take comfort in the warm pressure of Andrew’s arm as it wrapped possessively around you instead of just letting the sway of your body into his act out the sentiment for you. Andrew Birch led you out of the casino and called a car; your heart ached as you watched, imagining despite the knowledge that you were torturing yourself how in another life, the two of you could have congratulated each other on his debut—and oh _God_ , what a debut being the inside man on the operation to take down Richard Onslow Roper was—before settling into each other again like cats curling up together on a sunny rock somewhere safe. You would have pressed kisses to his eyelids between words of praise, fluttered your lips down his jaw as you crooned your love over his skin.

Instead you were stuck in the balmy air of a perfect Cairo night, his hands gripping you with no passion behind his hold, and a coldness behind the lips grazing purposefully down the column of your throat.

In an odd way, you couldn’t separate your pride for him from the pain of knowing that you had chosen your separate paths the day he came back from Iraq and told you that he wouldn’t be staying. That he couldn’t stay, that he needed to find the truth, his truth, any truth. It had been too easy to hear what he had still been too kind to say: _you weren’t the truth he needed_.

Your eyes flickered down to Andrew Birch’s hands, illuminated by a flickering glow from the casino’s torches, before you could stop yourself. You couldn’t tell if it was relief or anguish that shuddered in your heart at the sight of bare fingers on both hands. There was no tan line around his left ring finger. You hadn’t expected to see one (after all, your own left hand had been naked since the ink on the divorce papers began to dry), but you looked away all the same, unsure of what you wanted to make yourself believe.

You had known from the moment Roper gave his permission that the ride to the hotel couldn’t be a quiet, distanced affair. So you prepared yourself to cut the emotional strings lingering on your lips as you stepped into the car that pulled up to the casino’s circular drive, tinted windows sealing out light from the backseat. It would hurt, but you could bite him as fiercely as your hurting heart desired and content yourself with that to pay for the ache gaping in your chest. It would tide you over until London, where you could sob alone in your flat. It had to.

You didn’t expect Jonathan to take even that ghost of solace away from you; his lips were on yours before the door closed fully behind him, and by the time you heard the sharp click of the lock, his hands had shoved your skirt up, bunching the fabric at your hips as he pushed you down into the seat. He was warm, so wonderfully, terribly warm, and the feeling of him enveloped you completely as he brought one hand up to sneak below the plunging neckline of your dress, his other hand delving between your thighs.

Evidently, he’d learned from someone even more ruthless than you, and he was a damn good student. Maybe, in some twisted fashion, this was his way of giving you what mercy he could.

You swore against his mouth and he laughed, low and dark, at the hiss that seethed from your lips when his teeth scraped roughly against your pulse point. You reached with one hand for the hardness that you knew had brushed your inner thigh, only to have him catch your wrist in a grip like iron. He gave a single shake of his head and you narrowed your eyes at him for a moment before relaxing your arm; he slowly released his fingers from your wrist and you returned your hand to your side, flexing the joint slowly to ease the soreness his vise-like grasp had installed.

Not mercy, then. Punishment.

His eyes were dark and in the low light, you thought you saw the pupils blown wide, thin rings of clear, icy blue glimmering in the flashes from passing streetlamps.

A shot of anger surged through you and you lunged upwards, throwing an arm around the back of his neck and dragging him down to you as your body fell back to the seat, ragged pants escaping around your lips as you slammed your mouth to his, not daring to name the man whose taste bloomed now on your tongue. Half a consonant slipped into the air anyway; instantly, your tongue was very much occupied with his as his teeth seized the muscle and there was a hand wrapped around the base of your throat, squeezing just enough to remind you that this was Andrew Birch—

And then the purring of the engine stopped and light flooded in through the open door, casting your body half into shadow, blocked by Andrew’s frame. He looked out languidly, hand tracing along your jaw, and a slow, pleasant smile curved his lips. He turned back to you and leaned in for a final peck, his hand leaving your neck to scoop you up and help you to your feet. The instant of shock in his eyes when you nipped at his lower lip with your teeth as he pulled away was worth being jerked rather roughly out of the vehicle, although his hands were soft and flat against your back all the way into the hotel.

Again, Jonathan surprised you after the door to his suite closed and locked behind you; you had expected the debriefing and intelligence exchange to happen immediately, coldly, and for the unpleasant but necessary _afterwards_ to come without preamble.

Instead, you found yourself backed up against the closed door, caged between Andrew Birch’s arms, his knee knocking your legs apart and nudging deliberately against the apex of your thighs. You looked up at him, trying to find something to read behind the eyes you though you had known, but you found yourself staring into two nearly black mirrors, the circumference of each ringed thinly with azure.

You hadn’t imagined the dilation of his pupils in the car.

Your mouth opened, then closed. Gingerly, your fingertips met his chest over the starched fabric of his shirt; he had shed the suit jacket as soon as he entered, and it lay discarded in a crumpled heap on the coffee table behind him. You could feel pent-up energy thrumming through him, your pulse chasing after his, and some bitter voice in the back of your head wondered if Jed had felt it like this too.

“We don’t have to.”

His voice was quiet and kind beneath the tension and familiar, but your heart plummeted as soon as it leapt up in joy, because as much as you wanted to forget, you were a spy, and a good one at that. You had been trained to know when someone was lying, when someone meant more than they said.

And Jonathan Pine’s whispered offer to skip straight to what you had both come for meant that he knew everything you had tried to hide.

It had been a mistake to take this mission. You had been lying to yourself when you said that whatever you had felt for Jonathan was long buried, and you had lied to Angela when she asked you if you were sure. You had lied to yourself until this very moment, and yet you couldn’t bring yourself to regret the decision.

She had known, of course. Angela was no idiot, and she’d done her homework on both you and Jonathan. You doubted Angela had wanted to hurt you, but you knew that to bring Roper down, she would lay down her own life. The choice between sacrificing your emotions versus her boy’s information was an easy decision, and you couldn’t blame her. You weren’t flattering yourself; you knew this was exactly the reminder he needed not to get overly involved, not to fall for the beautiful American woman who had so much to lose. And you knew that this would just make him more determined to save her, because he couldn’t be responsible for her death on top of yours.

It was a good thing, then, that you had committed to this particular sacrifice the very first time you had told yourself that you didn’t love Jonathan Pine.

Angela was a bloody genius, and once you had been cleared from recovery, you were going to bring her something nice you had baked, have a cup of tea and maybe a biscuit, and then go and scream yourself hoarse cursing her genius. (Perhaps you would refrain for the baby’s sake. Perhaps.)

“We don’t have to,” Jonathan repeated, and this time his eyes were soft, which made it that much harder to look into them, force the desperation out of your voice, and say in the strongest, coldest tone you could muster,

“It needs to look real.”

The prospect of torture, of pain and blood, and eventual death didn’t scare you. After all, death was an unbreakable promise; no matter how long it took, even the worst man in the world didn’t have infinite patience. So yes, in the face of pain you could act jaded, because you were only human, and at a certain point your body would give out and that would be it. Period.

But in this moment, standing there as Jonathan Pine looked at you with a murky apology and regret, and worst of all, _love_ in his eyes, you realized that death and its permanence was no comfort to you anymore. You had something to lose now, and you had known you were going to lose it the instant you accepted this mission.

So when he whispered back to you, his voice feather-light, “Then we’ll make it real,” you didn’t fight the tears stinging your eyes, or the bittersweet salt on your tongue when he leaned in and pressed his lips to yours.

He kissed you sweet and gentle and needy, and you brushed away the slick of a single tear from his cheek with your thumb while the abyss in your chest yawned ever wider. Your body arched into his, your lips surging against his as if seeking sustenance. His hands were tender on your skin as your dress disappeared, destined for the same fate as his jacket, and you let them linger that way, because for just a few more seconds, you could pretend that this wasn’t happening for a stage, that the feeling of Jonathan’s body under your hands and his lips on yours was the only reality. You could pretend that the two of you had all the time in the world to love each other in nothing but honesty.

You let his soft kisses roam from your lips to the corner of your mouth and begin to trail down your throat before you tangled your fingers in his honey-blonde hair—the Spanish sun had struck gold into the strands, you noted wistfully—and reluctantly pulled yourself out of the shimmering haze his gentle, insistent lips on your skin had tipped you into.

“I…it needs to be Andrew Birch,” you murmured, wishing that you didn’t have to watch the unfocused, affectionate light in his eyes fade under the rapid fluttering of his lashes, leaving only cold, unreadable blue behind. His jaw clenched for a moment and you wished you could comfort him. A harsh, hot exhale hit the bare skin over your clavicle before he tipped his head up and slanted his mouth furiously over yours again.

This time he was frantic, lips pulling at yours while his hands yanked you closer, pulling you into him as if to devour you whole. You let yourself fall into the feeling, hooking one leg around his narrow hips and losing yourself to him while you could. He groaned into your mouth and you let his desperation and remorse hit you in full force, responding with your own fervor. You chose to let the elation of feeling his lips shape your real name silently against your cheek act as anesthesia; the pain would come later, all of it, and you would take it then.

For now, you would harvest all the love Jonathan poured into you and hole it away in your body, bury it under the floorboards of your ribs until you were far away enough that unearthing it was something close enough to safe.

He pulled away after too short an eternity, the taut skin of his cheeks flushing over reddened lips, and you knew that you were out of time.

The distance between the door and the bed blurred, and so did everything after that. Andrew Birch crawled on top of you, his hands pinning you down by the wrists while he sucked red and purple blooms to the surface of your skin, teeth coming in as sharp reminders of who you were with. One hand undid his belt hurriedly, and when he kicked a pile of navy fabric off his lower body, you sucked in a low breath of dual anticipation and resignation, heart pounding painfully behind your ribs.

Perform. One last performance, and then the curtain call would sweep you away.

A stranger’s razor-blade smile flashed at you and your free hand moved of its own accord to the buttons holding his crisp white shirt together. Three empty buttonholes in, and you paused, fingers trembling as you ran your hand over his chest, creeping up over newly bared skin and his shoulder to his face, thumb pressing just under the pronounced ridge of his cheekbone as you cupped his jaw. You didn’t know why you insisted on making this so much harder for the both of you. You couldn’t stop yourself. Some part of you (none too small) didn’t want to.

But silence stretched thin and taut between the two of you, labored breathing disturbing the surface until something snapped and Andrew Birch was gone, and Jonathan Pine was breathing heavy in the crook of your neck, his teeth scraping over skin only for his lips to soothe the pinprick of pain, one hand unclasping your bra and the other smoothing down your side.

This was real. Andrew Birch had come and gone and left the marks he needed to leave for now, and this, _this_ , was gloriously, blessedly, terrifyingly real.

Things moved quickly after that, in snapshots of unbearable clarity; Jonathan’s teeth closed around your earlobe as he slid into you, and you heard yourself gasp when his hips started to move, your fingers clutching him tight. A moaning hum that felt like a name vibrated through your lips as his hands found the places where your body begged for his touch. He shushed you with his open mouth as you tightened involuntarily around him when his fingers slicked over swollen, throbbing flesh, and the remnants of spearmint and whiskey on his heated breath felt like the key to heaven.

He built a shifting coil from your stomach up your spine, his fingers tracing infernos on your skin, sweet huffs of his breath adding fuel to the fire until the flames consumed you and you fell apart under him. He swallowed the high keen of his name as it spilled from your lips, and sipped from the shivering, low invocations of a god that flowed after, anything more coherent you might have produced lost in the delicious haze fogging your brain.

He spilled into you with a growl, hips stuttering against the slickness between your spread legs until you found enough control over your quivering thighs to wrap them around his body and lock him in place as warmth dripped from your union. His head dropped to the hollow between your neck and shoulder and you savored the feeling of his pulse on yours as his lips ghosted along your shoulder, tiny kisses interspersed with heaving gasps. The tender half-smile he gave you as your eyes met filled your heart as it broke, and you knew that he tasted the grateful sadness in your desire when you leaned up to kiss him, brushing your lips softly against his just to prolong the feeling of his weight on you, in you, around you.

Reality melted over you like a memory as Jonathan slid down your body, hovering over your breasts, your stomach, your hips. The embers of your reverie flared under his tongue as it darted out to lay a broad lick over your core; your thighs jerked against his flattened palms and you drank in the sound of his low, grainy laugh as his nose brushed the crease of your thigh, his lips following to smear your skin with a sticky mixture of you and him. The next slow delving of his tongue into you had your head spinning as it lolled back, your legs straining against his hold before Jonathan’s fingers replaced his tongue and his mouth moved upwards, lips closing around the engorged nub his thumb had just abandoned. His tongue laved over you, a buzz vibrating through his lips as he hummed around your flesh, fingers beckoning as if to draw your very soul out of your body; you dared say it was working if the uncontrollable bucking of your hips and the white spots crowding your vision were anything to go by.

You were vaguely aware of him pressing your hips and thighs back down to the mattress and holding you there, his fingers somehow keeping up a pace to make your head swim as he lifted his head long enough to order in a voice made husky and glistening by his ministrations, “Give me a real one.”

When his tongue lapped at you once more, you had no choice but to obey.

He didn’t muffle your shrieks as you tumbled into paradisiacal flames once more, only drank from you greedily until your spasms tapered out and you lay spent, skin chilling suddenly under its slick of sweat as you gasped for breath. Jonathan’s eyes were still so unbearably soft and unguarded as he laid himself beside you, caressing your hair with touches lighter than feathers. His fingers trailed lower, lingering on the darkening rounds his teeth had teased from you earlier. Salt and promises flowered on your lips when he kissed you again, and the gentle tongue that snaked into your mouth tasted of you both.

You hadn’t realized there was still more of your heart left to shatter until the mirrors descended back over his eyes and he rolled away, waving a hand in the direction of the wardrobe as he told you where to find a clean robe. He paused, naked back silhouetted by the light of the bathroom, but before he could get too tempted to deliver the apology you could see forming in his head, you strode to the wardrobe and snatched up the short robe hanging there. You’d done your part. Now, you just had to brace yourself for the aftermath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought of this first chapter! It's my first time writing ~ spicy content ~ so I'd love some feedback, both for that scene and in general! Thanks for reading, hope you'll join me for the next round too.


	2. And the Curtain Falls

You’d dragged a chair from the suite’s sitting room in to face the bed. It was a beautiful thing, all polished wood and vibrant lacquer, but its beauty didn’t help the way its hard planes jutted uncomfortably into your back and sides as you sat, trying not to look at the crumpled piles of clothing on the floor or catch sight of your own disheveled reflection in the sliver of mirror you could see from your position.

Jonathan walked back into view, the image of professionalism despite his sweatpants and cotton V-neck. Somehow, the sight relaxed you somewhat; this, you could handle. Cool, business relationship only.

And then your eyes met his and he wasn’t quite quick enough to cover up the turmoil sitting inside his skull. A sudden wave of nausea struck you and your grip tightened on the arm of the chair as he sat on the edge of the bed, steepling his fingers nonchalantly as he looked steadfastly to your right.

“River House is compromised,” you started abruptly. Better to get this over with. “Halo and Felix are making things difficult for London, and we need to know where you stand.”

Jonathan’s head shot up, electricity crackling through his gaze. “And that’s why they sent you.”

You wanted so, so badly to say his name, to let him hear how much this was wrecking you as well, but you knew your voice would break and you probably would too, so instead you took a deep breath and continued, “She doesn’t have anybody left, not after the leak. The American’s hands are tied, and we’re running out of time.”

“The leak wasn’t on my side. It was on yours, and what you’re telling me is that I’m the only chance Angela’s got at taking him down. She has nothing connecting Roper to Tradepass, nothing connecting him to arms, no proof of anything.” His voice simmered with ire barely contained beneath a glassy, dangerously calm surface, but there was a fury openly burning in his eyes as he locked gazes with you. You recognized this man, knew that this was why Angela had asked you to do this.

“Yes, and that’s why you can’t afford any unnecessary risks,” you snapped back, finally realizing in full how Jonathan Pine was your undoing. His glare burned still, but there was no real poison in it. You sighed, simultaneously grateful for and loathsome of the physical gap between the two of you. “You know you can’t be a hero for everyone. You can’t save everyone, Jonathan.”

“She doesn’t deserve to die.”

_And I do?_

You bit back the reactionary sentence before it had the chance to touch your tongue. “Neither did Sophie Alekan,” you said carefully, watching how Jonathan’s hand clenched into a fist at the mention of the woman. It felt odd to know that he trusted you enough to let his body speak so honestly. “Her death can’t be in vain. You have to think big picture. If you want a chance at Roper, you can’t let Jed’s life distract you. You’re a good man, Jonathan. But you can’t…you have to put things aside and play your part. That’s what people like us do.”

He was silent, but the tic in his jaw told you that he knew exactly what you meant. Leaving the army hadn’t made him any less of a soldier, but becoming a spy meant he had confronted the idea of what that status really meant. He had become a soldier, just like you—living a lie to bring about the truth.

You waited, tongue probing the false cap on your upper right molar. Soon, you’d have to crush it and swallow the pill hidden underneath, and it would be your time to die for the cause. It was some small comfort that Jonathan would be the one to take away the one person you’d die to preserve.

“I can’t let her die,” he confessed. You had expected it, but it stung anyway, a petty wound that your pride refused to stop licking raw. He paused, eyes fixed on some point in the distance. “I haven’t turned. You _know_ I haven’t. But I can’t lose another woman I love.”

Your next breath was shaky and you hated him for it, hated him with every fibre of your being even as you knew that you would never be anything but hopelessly in love with Jonathan Pine.

“When you’re blown,” you told him fiercely through the liquid distorting your vision, “and I’m not saying _any_ of this with anyone else’s blessing, Jonathan, but I know that you’re too goddamn attached to the morals that got you this far to make her a sacrifice—when you’re blown, you have to remember who your cover is, and you have to play their hand without a single hesitation to the very end, because if you don’t, Roper will _destroy_ you, and her, and the world will go on turning without a single person blinking at the loss.”

You glared at him through a sheen of tears you didn’t bother hiding, fingers long gone white on the arms of the chair. “I’ll tell Angela that you’re still her boy, and I’ll do whatever else I can. But Jona—”

“I can’t let her die, and I can’t lose you either. Not again. Not like this.”

His voice was gravelly, and you realized that for someone who prided herself on reading between the lines of what people said, you had been entirely illiterate regarding a certain Jonathan Pine. His eyes were guarded, but you could see enough to taste his sincerity as he said, “It’s not a choice I get to make.” Your name fell from his lips, gentle as rain. “I loved you when I shouldn’t have, and didn’t until it was too late, and I never admitted it. Not to myself, not to you. It took me too long to find the truth.”

Your teeth clamped down on your lower lip. There was no time for this, no time for the emotions threatening to choke you. No time to let yourself think about the fact that Jonathan, _your Jonathan_ , may have loved Jed, but not in the way that he loved you— _never_ in the way that he loved you, because he had lost you once already, was about to lose you again for the sake of saving people like Sophie Alekan and Jemimah Marshall, and he wouldn’t lose Jed. No time to heal.

You found Jonathan’s eyes and soaked up the honesty, the resolve, the _love_ in his clear blue gaze. You bottled them up and shoved them somewhere deep in your chest, next to the things you had taken from his lips and skin and everything else earlier that night, and you told yourself that you were ready.

He must have seen it in your face, because he let out a long, slow breath, and told you in a fractured voice brimming with bespoke suffering, “It needs to look real.”

The tip of your tongue popped the false cap off your tooth and you gulped down the powder packed under it, telling yourself that the dryness was why your chest ached. You offered Jonathan a small smile and whispered back, “Make it real.”

Your ears were already ringing when Jonathan nodded and stood. You watched through bleary eyes as his left hand curled into a fist and he raised it deliberately to his lips. You felt the kiss he planted gently on the base of his ring finger as if he had pressed it to your skin instead and whispered the apology you’d seen in his tear-glossed eyes.

When his fist slammed into your cheek, knocking your head to the side with a sickening crack, the pain felt like a promise.

Your eyes slipped closed after two of your ribs cracked underfoot, dousing you in darkness as Jonathan’s harsh grunts began to fade. His final act of mercy was waiting until your breathing had stopped to have Andrew Birch break your bones in five distinct places, and he punished himself by watching the police unfurl a white sheet over your battered, bloodied body.

 

When he held Freddie Hamid’s head underwater until the man’s limbs stopped jerking, Jonathan remembered Sophie Alekan’s elegant eyes and the way they glimmered in candlelight, but he did not shed a tear.

When he pressed the green call button on Langbourne’s phone and felt the searing heat of explosions behind him quell under the frigid, deadly fury in Richard Roper’s eyes, he remembered Jed Marshall’s laughter, spilling over the pale slope of one bare shoulder as she walked into the sea. He did not shed a tear.

It surprised no one, least of all Angela Burr, when Richard Onslow Roper met a sticky end at the hands of a few redacted names just days after Sameera Doe’s death— _death, not murder, and Andrew Birch had nothing to do with_ it—was reported to the Cairo police and Jed Marshall left Egypt for her sister’s home and her son, having secured a promise from Jonathan Pine to visit her soon.

Angela Burr was very pregnant and bedbound after her return to London, but she was still indubitably capable of ordering Jonathan Pine to come visit her for a cup of tea, because there was something that she needed him to know. And so she did, aggressively, and when he arrived she sat him down in a chair by her bedside, shook a tin of biscuits at the man until he relented and took one, and told him how she and Joel Steadman had gone to the mortuary the night Freddie Hamid drowned tragically in his business estate, thrown the sheet back from your cold, stiff face, and waited for the drug hidden in the false cap of your molar to wear off.

“‘Wake up, Juliet,’ I told her,” Angela said as Jonathan’s eyes misted over and his limbs began to burn with a strange sensation somewhere between the lucid heat of combat and the shaky tremors of starvation. “Can’t suppose I blame her for demanding a drink after, can I, Romeo?”

She refused to give him the address of your flat, but Angela knew her boy well enough to know that her silence would barely slow him down. (She’d never admit it to either of you, but she was glad. Roper’s downfall had brought more peace of mind than just the assurance of a world where her unborn child’s school sports days would be just that.) Her telephone call to you was brief and contained just what you needed to hear from her to form the wild, vague idea that perhaps the reality you’d shared with Jonathan that night in Cairo could become more than a memory.

So when you trudged back to your flat after your weekly physical therapy session, you couldn’t quite lie to yourself about the hope flaring alongside suspicion when you noticed a light coming from your kitchen window. Instead, you inhaled deep and shoved down the things threatening to float up from where you had them bottled up and buried in your chest. The knife you took from your purse didn’t shake as you unlocked the door, and you pitied the unlucky burglar who’d picked your flat to target.

A hint of Jonathan’s cologne reached you as you opened the door, but you didn’t dare believe the familiarity of its sweet, crisp spice enough to lower the knife on the way to the kitchen. Then the bottle in your chest popped open, memories made reality crashing over you and stealing your breath when you turned the corner and saw him sitting at your dining table, hands folded neatly in front of him, one ankle resting on the opposite knee.

His hair had grown slightly longer since the last time you’d seen him, and there was a hint of red-gilded stubble shadowing his jaw. Your eyes dropped from his, unable to bear the bursting emotion roiling there. Warm, etched gold gleamed at the base of his left ring finger, and your thoughts froze. You knew that ring. In another time, you’d placed it there yourself.

 Jonathan said your name hesitantly, and the glass in your heart shattered. The knife in your hand clattered as it hit the floor, followed by the softer thud of your purse, and a vicious tremble wracked your body as you tried to swipe away your sobs.

When he rushed to you and drew you to himself, arms wrapping tightly around your body, fingers brushing tears away into the thin gloss forming on your cheeks, Jonathan remembered your voice thrumming over his lips one night in Cairo as your skin glided like silk beneath his fingers. He remembered days and weeks and months of you—your eyes, your mouth, your soul—in a flat thirty minutes from this one, in London streets, in France on the holiday you’d begged from him and your boss.

Your trembling lips whispered something against his chest as you clutched him to you and Jonathan felt your existence solidify in his hands as memory melted into reality. And he wept.


End file.
